Beard
by blueowls
Summary: Kurt x Brittany, Brittany x Santana. //"You're cute when you blush."//


**Author Note:** Originally a Kurt/Brittany prompt: "You're cute when you blush."

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing.

**Beard**

If Kurt's going to try to fake it with anyone, it's going to be Brittany. She's the only one in glee—and possibly the entire school. Hell, in _Lima_—who knows anything about professional choreography or Alexander McQueen's new collection, which had kind of surprised and impressed him and then not once he saw her wearing something other then her Cheerio uniform. She gives him her Cosmo magazines the day after she gets them with the "how to please your man" articles dog-eared, and from that brief span of time where he was on the football team, he knows she's got a fantastic body and is a supermodel in disguise.

He can't kiss a girl. But he can (try to) kiss perfection.

The only problem is that she doesn't know she's his beard.

It shouldn't surprise him that as a Cheerio—not to mention as Quinn and Santana's friend—Brittany's used to following someone else's lead. Decision-making is not her forte, which may explain why she hasn't made a move on him yet. He's good-looking and she's a cheerleader, so Kurt doesn't understand why this is taking so long, because that's a better combination then Puck and stupid decisions or Santana and alcohol or Rachel and singing. Not that he's looking _forward_ to it or anything, but McKinley Cheerios and celibacy don't go together, no matter how much they try.

He catches her lingering in the hallway after glee one day and decides to make the first move. He stands on his toes and places a hand on her shoulder to steady himself without actually touching her, and his lips are a hairsbreadth away from her cheek when she turns her head to the side abruptly and he ends up with a mouthful of thick, blonde hair.

"Aw, Kurt," she says with an easy smile, her fingers wrapping around his wrist and pulling his hand down as he shuts his mouth, pretending that he didn't have a stray blonde hair stuck to his bottom lip. "You don't have to do that."

He chuckles nervously and brushes the hair off without her noticing, but her statement makes him uneasy. Why would she say that? He almost asks, but Brittany only takes his hand and lets him drive her home, where they hole themselves up in her room and give each other manicures and complain about glee with Santana on speakerphone.

She's the perfect beard, until she's not.

The librarian's on the warpath and stalking the aisles for vandalism, so Kurt pulls a thick dictionary off the shelf to shield his Vitamin Water from her as she glides by, but he nearly drops it when he sees a familiar flash of color that's enough to make any gleek's blood run cold through the gap where the dictionary used to be.

Santana's whispering dirty things in her ear and she's tugging on her top suggestively, so Brittany shoves the yearbook back on the shelf, leans in quickly, and brushes her lips against Santana's, failing to notice Kurt at the end of the aisle until she hears that familiar annoyed throat-clearing noise. The two girls jerk away from each other and turn at the same time, Brittany swatting Santana's hands away and tugging down on the hem of her top as Kurt raises a brow.

He's not sure whether or not to keep pretending they're boyfriend and girlfriend since Brittany hasn't given him much to run with—and in any case, finding your semi-girlfriend in the library kissing another girl is probably grounds for breaking up—so he just gestures vaguely at Santana, hoping that'll be enough to get some sort of answer.

"Sorry, Kurt," Brittany says with a small shrug. "I would've told Santana no if I didn't already know that it wasn't real."

Kurt looks from one Cheerio to the other, pursing his lips to keep his jaw from hanging open stupidly. "You knew?"

"Mm-hm," Brittany nods, ponytail bobbing as Santana watches in quiet amusement, twirling a silver sharpie between her fingers like a gunslinger. "I was just wondering if _you _knew."

At this, Kurt goes pink, but Brittany has him in a loose hug, ruffling his hair because she's the only one who can get away with it without getting maced with a can of hairspray.

"You're cute when you blush," she tells him as she lets go. "And someone will see that soon."

By junior year, they all go out on double-dates together, and when Kurt's boyfriend tugs him toward a darker corner of the theater with a thinly-veiled excuse, Kurt looks over his shoulder to see Santana flicking popcorn at the people in front of her and Brittany grinning and mouthing 'good luck,' and he realizes that he couldn't have asked for a better beard.

Or friend.


End file.
